sip  iBBB 


God\>  Wonderful  Work 

IN  FRANCE. 


f|od'd  ifonderM  Igork 


IN  FRANCE. 


AN  INTRODUCTION 

OF  THE 

DEPUTATION  FROM  THE  PROTESTANTS  OF  FRANCE 

TO 

THE  AMERICAN  CHURCHES. 

BY  REV.  LEOHARD  W.  BACOH. 


PUBLISHED  FOR  THE 

SPECIAL  COMMISSION  ON  THE  WORK  OF  THE  DEPUTATION 

BY  THE 

AMERICAN  TRACT  SOCIETY, 

I50  NASSAU  STREET,  NEW  YORK. 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2014 


https://archive.org/details/godswonderfulworOObaco 


CHAPTER  I. 

The  Beginning  of  the  Great  Work  in  France.  Paul  Bouchard 
and  his  Letter  to  the  Bishop  page 

CHAPTER  II. 

M.  Eugene  Reveillaud  and  his  Pamphlet    


CHAPTER  III. 

Notable  Accessions  to  Protestantism.  Renouvier  and  Pillon 
and  the  "Critique  Philosophique."  Francisque  Sarcey. 
In  Belgium,  Laveleye  and  Frere-Orban.  Jules  Favre, 
and  the  Funeral  at  Versailles   

CHAPTER  IV. 

The  "CEuvre  des  Conferences."  The  Marks  of  a  Divine 
Work.  The  Dawn  of  Religious  Liberty.  Protestant- 
ism in  the  Government.  Protestant  Worship  in  the 
Palace  of  Versailles.  A  Week's  Work  of  the  "Con- 
ferences." A  Letter  to  Republican  Peasants.  A  Two 
Hundred  Years'  Retrospect  -  


4 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  V. 
The  McAll  Mission.    A  brief  Survey  by  Dr.  Horatius  Bonar-  43 

CHAPTER  VI. 

The  Deputation  to  America.  France  the  great  Mission  Field 
of  the  World,  to-day.  The  Three  Societies.  M. 
Reveillaud's  Farewell.    The  Commission   51 


PRINCETON 

God's  Wonderful  Work 


IN  FRANCE. 


CHAPTER  I. 

The  Beginning  of  the  Great  Work  in  France. 
Paul  Bouchard  and  his  Letter  to  the 
Bishop. 

About  the  beginning  of  the  year  1877,  there  was 
printed  in  many  newspapers  of  France  a  letter  of  very 
unusual  tenor,  addressed  by  Monsieur  Paul  Bouchard, 
a  former  Mayor  of  the  city  of  Beaune,  to  the  Bishop  of 
Dijon,  in  whose  diocese  he  lives.  The  letter  is  brief 
and  tells  its  own  story  so  plainly  that  we  transcribe  it 
in  full : 

"Beaune,  Dec.  31,  1876 
"To  the  Lord  Bishop  of  Dijon. 
"  My  Lord  :  I  have  the  honor  to  present  the  following 
declaration  to  you  who  are  the  only  person  qualified,  as  head 
of  the  diocese,  to  receive  it. 

"  From  day  to  day  we  are  accustomed  to  see  funeral  pro- 
cessions attended  to  the  last  resting  place  by  the  Catholic 
priest,  with  the  mortal  remains  of  men  who  have  held  them- 


6     GOD'S  WONDERFUL  WORK  IN  FRANCE. 


selves  aloof  from  the  Catholic  church,  or  have  even  been  its 
open  enemies,  the  greater  part  of  their  lives. 

"  In  these  circumstances,  the  church,  to  justify  its  taking 
part,  claims  that  these  men,  having  been  born  within  its  pale, 
and  having  been  married  and  having  had  their  children  bap- 
tized by  a  priest,  have  continued  to  be  Catholics,  notwith- 
standing all  their  open  declarations  to  the  contrary. 

"  In  fact,  in  view  of  acts  of  such  grave  import  on  their 
part,  how  can  these  men  be  released  from  their  engagements 
except  by  another  act,  of  a  clear,  decisive,  unmistakable 
character  ? 

"  Such  an  act,  my  lord,  is  that  of  public  abjuration  ;  and  it 
is  upon  this  that  I  have  resolved,  in  order  to  extricate  myself 
from  the  uneasy  and  false  position  in  which  I  have  already 
continued  quite  too  long.  I  have  resolved  on  this  step, 
further,  in  order  to  fulfil  a  duty  which  rests  on  me  as  a  loyal 
and  conscientious  man. 

"  I  declare,  therefore,  that  I  abjure  Catholicism  and  trans- 
fer my  adhesion  to  Protestantism,  which  I  regard  as  the  only 
deliverance  for  our  country  from  the  dangers  which  threaten 
it  from  every  quarter. 

"  I  am,  my  lord,  with  deep  respect, 

"PAUL  BOUCHARD." 

This  letter  is  notable  for  its  contents,  its  author, 
and  its  consequences. 

It  will  be  observed  that  the  main  motives  expressed 
in  it  are,  first,  consistency,  and  secondly,  patriotism — 
motives  altogether  respectable  in  themselves,  but  not 
the  highest  that  could  be  named  for  an  act  of  so  grave 
a  religious  import.  But  how  great  an  advance  did  it 
imply  from  the  position  which  up  to  that  date  the  writer 
had  held  in  common  with  thousands — say  rather,  with 


PAUL  BOUCHARD'S  LETTER. 


1 


hundreds  of  thousands — of  his  fellow-citizens.  To 
consent,  sometimes  with  the  outward  show  of  respect, 
sometimes  with  open  scoffs,  that  one's  name  and  influ- 
ence and  example  shall  be  associated  with  a  system  of 
beliefs  and  ceremonies  which  is  inwardly  renounced 
and  despised;  to  permit  one's  self  to  be  officially 
reckoned  among  the  adherents  of  a  church  which  is  the 
avowed  enemy  of  the  institutions  and  liberties  of  his 
country — such  has  been  and  is  the  miserably  false 
position  of  the  average  French  liberal  and  republi- 
can. The  act  of  M.  Bouchard,  though  not  the  utter- 
ance of  a  Christian  faith,  nor  even  of  an  intellectual 
conviction  of  religious  truth,  was  a  worthy  and  honor- 
able act.  He  wished  to  renounce  allegiance  to  the 
Roman  church,  the  enemy  of  the  republic;  and  the  only 
effective  way  of  doing  this,  under  the  existing  laws  and 
usages  of  France,  was  to  declare  his  adhesion  to  the 
French  National  Protestant  Church,  which  he  could  do 
without  offence  to  his  reason  as  an  intelligent  man,  or 
his  patriotism  as  a  loyal  citizen. 

The  writer  of  the  letter  is  a  man  advanced  in  years, 
the  ex-mayor  of  his  city  (Beaune)  and  member  of  the 
Council-General  of  his  Department  (Cote  d'Or).  In 
the  terrible  days  of  1870,  he  was  the  trusted  friend  and 
supporter  of  Gambetta  in  the  organization  of  the  na- 
tional defence.  Among  the  little  popular  tracts  with 
which  he  has  followed  up  the  letter  to  his  bishop, 
and  which  are  scattered  by  myriads  among  the  peasant- 


8     GOD'S  WONDERFUL  WORK  IN  FRANCE. 


ry  in  all  parts  of  France,  is  one  in  the  form  of  a 
"  Letter  to  L£on  Gambetta,"  the  concluding  page  of 
which  clearly  indicates  his  position.  He  addresses  the 
great  tribune  of  the  people,  the  Mirabeau  of  the  new 
republic,  with  the  freedom  warranted  by  superior  age 
and  long-tried  friendship,  and  reproaches  him  with  the 
demoralizing  atheism  which  appears  in  his  popular 
speeches — a  teaching  not  less  perilous  to  France  than 
that  of  the  Romish  clergy ;  and  he  concludes  thus  : 

"To  bring  back  France  into  the  way  from  which,  in  the 
sixteenth  century,  she  was  led  astray  by  her  incapable  and 
guilty  rulers — to  bring  her  over  from  Catholicism  to  Prot- 
estantism— this  is  what  I  propose.  This  is  the  only  practical 
course.  You,  our  present  rulers,  have  no  other  course  to 
propose.  Rather,  let  me  say,  the  course  you  are  following, 
far  from  diminishing  the  existing  evil,  only  aggravates  it  by 
strengthening  that  church  which  is  the  public  enemy. 

"  We  are  confronted  by  two  great  public  evils  :  one  is  the 
idolatry  which  is  cherished  and  developed  by  the  church  of 
Rome  in  pursuance  of  its  principle  :  brutalize  the  people  and 
so  rule  them.  The  other  is  the  atheism  which  grows  strong 
on  the  hatred  of  the  Roman  church  and  clergy. 

"  Both  are  alike  perilous,  alike  fatal.  We  must  fight  them 
both.  Our  duty,  unless  we  are  to  perish,  is  to  strive  against 
them  to  the  utmost  of  our  energy. 

"There  is  no  liberty  in  Romanism,  for  its  principle  is 
domination  and  subjection.  There  is  none  in  atheism,  for 
it  denies  God  and  the  life  to  come ;  it  leaves  us  with  no  faith 
except  in  ourselves,  limited  to  earthly  wants,  with  no  mo- 
tives but  our  passions  and  appetites,  whose  slaves  we  thus 
become.  A  short  and  easy  step  it  is,  from  that  point,  to  be- 
come the  slaves  of  a  Caesar. 


PAUL  BOUCHARD'S  LETTER. 


9 


"  Protestantism  is  our  only  escape  from  Romanism ;  it 
will  be  found  to  be  our  only  escape  from  atheism.  Deliver 
us  from  both,  for  they  are  our  two  worst  enemies." 

So  clearly  does  this  experienced  French  politician 
apprehend  the  fact,  so  plainly  does  he  set  it  before  his 
countrymen,  that  French  Romanism  is  the  parent  of 
French  atheism,  and  that  atheism,  in  return,  drives  the 
people  back  into  Romanism. 

M.  Bouchard  took  this  step  alone.  He  could 
hardly  have  foreseen  that  he  would  be  followed  within 
a  few  months  by  thousands  of  his  fellow-country- 
men, from  the  peasant  on  the  farm  and  the  artisan 
in  the  workshop,  to  the  highest  names  in  statesman- 
ship and  literature.  Surely  he  did  not  foresee  that  the 
movement  which  began,  in  his  own  mind,  from  mo- 
tives of  consistency  and  patriotism,  would  deepen  as 
well  as  widen,  and  give  every  evidence,  in  awakened 
consciences,  in  repentance  toward  God,  in  faith  and 
grateful  love  toward  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  of  the 
wonder-working  presence  of  the  Holy  Spirit. 

The  brief  tracts  of  M.  Bouchard,  which  have  had 
the  widest  currency  in  France  of  late,  are  these  five : 

1.  Simple  Letter  of  a  Burgundian  to  the  people  of 
his  own  little  city. 

2.  Voluntary  Slavery. 

3.  God  and  Native  Land.    Addressed  to  women. 

4.  Letter  to  Leon  Gambetta. 

5.  Romanism  and  the  Republic. 

God's  Work  in  France.  2 


io    GOD'S  WONDERFUL  WORK  IN  FRANCE. 


CHAPTER  II. 

M.  Eugene  Reveillaud  and  his  Pamphlet. 

"  This  pamphlet  is  not  a  work  of  faith,  though  it 
is  a  work  of  good  faith."  Such  is  the  opening  sen- 
tence of  a  remarkable  publication  which  is  circulating 
to  the  number  of  many  thousands  in  all  parts  of 
France,  and  which  represents  the  new  religious  move- 
ment to  the  minds  of  thoughtful  and  studious  persons, 
as  the  pungent  little  tracts  of  M.  Paul  Bouchard 
represent  it  to  the  common  people,  the  peasants,  and 
the  artisans.  If  the  ecclesiastical  historian  of  a  future 
generation,  continuing  into  a  new  era  the  thrilling 
story  of  French  Protestantism,  shall  have  occasion  to 
tell  how  in  the  latter  part  of  the  nineteenth  century 
"  the  grand  nation  "  passed  over  from  the  list  of  papal 
countries  to  that  of  Protestant  countries,  and  to  tell  of 
the  instrumentalities  that  concurred  in  this  momentous 
work,  he  will  have  to  ascribe  no  small  share  in  it  to 
the  pamphlet  of  144  pages,  i2mo,  the  first  important 
work  of  a  young  lawyer  and  journalist,  Eugene  Revei- 
llaud, entitled  "  The  Religious  Question  and  the  Prot- 
estant Solution." 


RE  l  EILLA  UD  A  ND  HIS  PA  MPHLE  T.       1 1 

"  It  is  not  a  work  of  faith,  though  it  is  a  work  of  good 
faith.  The  writer  is  not  a  believer,  though  he  would  fain  be 
one.  He  belongs  to  no  church.  Born  and  educated  in  the 
Catholic  church,  he  early  abjured  its  pomps  and  its  works. 
He  is  what  is  called  a  'free-thinker.'  He  is  one  of  the  great 
multitude  of  enthusiasts  for  freedom  of  conscience,  the  prog- 
ress of  the  human  mind,  the  honor  and  glory  of  his  country. 

"  His  testimony  for  Protestantism  is  spontaneous  and  dis- 
interested. His  book  is  not  for  the  propagation  of  a  creed, 
but  for  the  preservation  of  society." 

So,  frankly,  in  his  preface,  the  young  pamphleteer 
introduces  the  sober  and  weighty  words,  addressed 
simply  to  the  patriotism  of  Frenchmen,  in  which  he 
advises  them,  as  the  one  way  to  deliver  France  from 
the  moral  debasement,  the  impoverishment,  the  end- 
less mischievous  intrigues  in  which  it  is  involved  by 
existing  relations  to  the  Church  of  Rome  and  its 
clergy,  to  renounce  that  church,  and  at  the  same  time, 
since  no  people  can  exist  without  some  religion,  to 
transfer  themselves  and  their  families  to  the  communion 
of  the  Protestant  church. 

It  is  honorable  to  the  high  character  ot  French 
Protestantism  that  it  gave  at  the  outset  a  very  hesita- 
ting and  scanty  welcome  to  converts  professing  no 
loftier  reasons  for  their  adhesion  than  these  reasons 
of  patriotic  expediency,  and,  to  use  the  French  ex- 
pression, "  religious  opportunism."  Even  when  it 
began  to  enrich  its  rolls  with  such  names  as  those 
of  M.  Renouvier,  and  M.  Bouchard,  and  M.  Jules 


12    GOD'S  WONDERFUL  WORK  IN  FRANCE. 


Favre,  the  ministers  ol  the  little  "  persecuted  rem- 
nant "  of  the  Huguenot  church  bore  themselves  with 
the  dignity  of  men  put  in  trust  with  the  gospel,  and 
declared  boldly  in  sermon  and  pamphlet  that  join- 
ing one's  self  to  the  Protestant  party  did  not  make 
one  a  Protestant ;  that  this  required  the  sincere  con- 
viction of  the  heart,  and  the  work  of  the  Spirit  of  God. 
And  they  grew  more  faithful  in  setting  forth  the  truths 
of  the  gospel,  as  held  by  Protestant  Christians,  before 
the  minds  that  had  been  awakened  by  the  appeals  of 
M.  Reveillaud  and  M.  Bouchard. 

The  work  of  God's  Spirit,  to  which  the  pastors 
appealed,  was  not  long  in  becoming  manifest.  In  July, 
1878,  four  months  after  the  pamphlet  of  Reveillaud 
had  begun  to  waken  the  thoughts  of  French  patriots, 
there  occurred  one  Sunday,  in  the  Protestant  meeting- 
house of  the  city  of  Troyes,  a  startling  and  thrilling 
incident,  the  story  of  which,  as  told  by  the  pastor  of 
the  church  himself,  we  condense  from  "  L'Ami  Chre- 
tien des  Families,"  in  which  it  is  given  without  men- 
tion of  name  or  place.  The  pastor  had  been  preach- 
ing on  the  dying  vision  of  Stephen,  and  was  preparing 
to  dismiss  the  congregation,  when  a  young  man  rose 
suddenly  and  came  toward  the  pulpit : 

"  I  turned  quickly,  and  perceived  that  the  intelligent  and 
educated  young  man  who  was  coming  towards  me,  and 
whom  I  well  knew,  desired  to  be  heard.  '  Would  you  suffer 
me,'  he  said,  '  to  bear  witness  to  the  Holy  Ghost  ?'    I  gave 


REVEILLAUD  AND  HIS  PAMPHLET. 


'3 


him  leave,  and  standiug  before  the  communion  table  below 
the  pulpit  he  spoke  nearly  as  follows : 

"  My  brethren,  I  desire  to  bear  witness  to  the  Holy  Ghost, 
and  to  declare,  with  our  pastor,  that  there  is  an  invisible  and 
supernatural  world,  not  known  by  the  senses,  but  apprehend- 
ed by  faith  and  heavenly  grace.  Last  night  it  pleased  the 
Holy  Spirit  to  reveal  himself  to  me  and  give  me  that  baptism 
in  which,  according  to  the  promise  of  the  Scriptures,  we  be- 
come the  children  of  the  Father  and  joint-heirs  with  Jesus 
Christ.  By  this  baptism  I  have  been  born  again,  and  have 
put  off  the  old  man,  with  the  lusts  of  the  flesh.  I  feel  the 
grace,  the  power,  the  love  of  God.  I  have  entered  into  the 
invisible  church  of  Christ.    I  am  converted.    I  am  saved. 

"  I  was  the  most  unworthy  of  the  children  of  sin  and  the 
world ;  and  when  I  think  of  my  old  life,  so  corrupt  and  im- 
pure, I  wonder  that  God  should  deign  to  make  choice  of  my 
soul  for  a  temple  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  Formerly  I  had  noth- 
ing but  a  wish  for  good,  a  lively  feeling  of  my  misery,  with  a 
vague,  indefinite  desire  to  make  my  peace  with  God,  and 
enjoy  his  favor.  I  remember  that  some  days  ago  I  expressed 
in  prayer  the  desire  that  God  would  bestow  on  me  the 
grace  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  I  have  been  answered  a  hundred- 
fold more  than  I  could  have  dared  to  hope. 

"  I  fell  asleep  yesterday  in  an  atmosphere  of  worldly 
thoughts,  and  I  do  not  remember  that  during  the  whole  day 
I  had  once  lifted  up  my  heart  to  God.  In  the  night  T  had  a 
dream.  I  thought  that  I  was  arguing  with  a  Catholic  lady. 
She  said  to  me:  '  Yours  is  no  religion  ;  you  believe  nothing.' 
'  What !'  said  I,  still  in  my  dream,  '  believe  nothing  ?  On  the 
contrary,  we  have  the  same  creed  with  the  Catholics ;'  and  I 
went  on  to  repeat  to  her  the  Apostles'  Creed — '  I  believe  in 
God  the  Father  Almighty,  maker  of  heaven  and  earth,  and 
in  Jesus  Christ,  his  only  Son,  our  Lord,'  etc.  I  continued 
thus,  in  my  dream,  making  an  effort,  sometimes,  to  remem- 
ber the  words,  and  my  conviction  of  their  truth  grew  stronger 


14    GOD'S  WONDERFUL  WORK  IN  FRANCE. 


as  I  proceeded.  I  came  to  that  part  of  the  creed  '  From 
thence  he  shall  come  to  judge  the  quick  and  the  dead,'  when 
it  seemed  as  if  the  earth  quaked,  and  a  gulf  opened,  and  the 
stars  fell  from  heaven— as  if  the  last  day  had  come.  The 
impression  was  instantaneous,  and  I  expected  to  be  swal- 
lowed up  in  the  universal  convulsion,  when  I  remembered 
the  part  of  the  creed  I  had  recited  the  moment  before,  '  I  be- 
lieve in  the  Holy  Ghost.'  At  this  moment  it  seemed  that  I 
was  set  beyond  the  open  gulf,  and  that  the  Holy  Ghost  took 
possession  of  me.  'Saved!'  I  thought  to  myself,  and  I 
repeated,  as  if  to  reassure  myself  of  my  salvation,  '  I  believe ; 
yes,  I  believe  in  the  Holy  Ghost.' 

"  From  that  moment  I  had  the  assurance  that  I  was  no 
longer  dreaming.  What  followed  might  have  seemed  an 
hallucination,  had  I  not  tested  it  thoroughly,  and  found  it  to 
be  the  conviction  of  a  waking  man  whose  pulse  was  calm, 
I  counted  it  repeatedly,  and  who  was  fully  conscious  of  his 
own  personality — knowing  himself  to  be  in  his  room,  and 
perceiving,  when  he  opened  his  eyes,  the  light  of  dawn 
creeping  through  the  windows. 

"As  I  repeated,  still  under  the  influence  of  the  dream 
and  the  vision, '  I  believe — I  believe  in  the  Holy  Ghost,'  a 
tender  emotion  filled  my  whole  being.  I  had  from  this  mo- 
ment the  persuasion  that  the  Holy  Spirit  had  come  to  me. 
I  had  a  perfect  feeling  of  happiness  and  a  most  lively  im- 
pression of  the  infinitude  of  the  love  of  God.  I  repeated  the 
Apostles'  Creed  from  the  beginning,  and  a  new  meaning 
seemed  to  shine  out  from  it  and  make  all  its  assertions  self- 
evidencing.  I  was  full  of  deep  emotion.  I  was  filled  with 
a  rushing  flood  of  divine  love.  It  is  impossible  to  express 
in  words  my  experience,  and  the  happiness  it  brought  .  .  . 

"  I  owe  to  you,  my  brethren,  members  with  me  of  this  Chris- 
tian church,  the  first  expression  of  my  new-born  and  living 
faith.  Glory  to  God  in  the  highest,  on  earth  peace,  good-will 
toward  men  !    Christ  has  come  to  redeem  us,  to  save  us,  to 


REVEILLA  I'D  AND  HIS  PAMPHLET. 


'5 


bear  the  burden  of  our  sins,  to  be  our  ransom  before  the 
Father.  Christ  reigns  and  has  fellowship  with  us  by  the 
Holy  Spirit.  Oh,  love  the  Lord  Jesus ;  love  God,  that  God 
may  work  his  work  in  you,  that  you  may  be  filled  with  the 
grace  of  the  Spirit,  and  thus  may  have  peace  and  the  com- 
munion of  the  Holy  Ghost,  joy  of  heart,  and  assurance  of 
eternal  life." 

The  utterer  of  this  remarkable  confession  was  none 
other  than  Eugene  Re'veillaud,  the  brilliant  young  ad- 
vocate and  journalist  who  four  months  before  had  said, 
at  the  opening  of  his  book,  "  The  writer  is  not  a  be- 
liever, though  he  fain  would  be  one."  With  such  an 
anointing  has  he  been  set  apart  to  the  work  of  a  leader 
of  his  people  out  of  darkness  and  confusion  into  the 
light  of  the  gospel. 

M.  Reveillaud  is  a  young  man,  not  yet  thirty 
years  old.  Born  and  bred  a  Catholic,  devoted  to  the 
priesthood  by  a  pious  mother,  his  conscience  early 
revolted  from  the  teachings  of  the  "petit  se'minat're." 
He  pursued  the  course  of  college  education  with  high 
honor,  winning  the  prize  for  rhetoric  in  the  "  general 
competition"  among  the  grammar  schools  of  all  France, 
and  entered  at  once  on  the  study  of  law,  in  which  he 
took  his  degree,  but  never  has  practised  as  an  advocate 
except  in  political  trials  and  "  press  trials  "  in  which  he 
has  been  involved  as  a  journalist.  For  he  was  early 
drawn  into  the  career  of  journalism.  At  the  age  of 
twenty-one  he  was  chief  editor  of  the  "The  Taxpayer" 
{Le  Contribuable),  and  after  that,  in  succession,  of  sev- 


1 6    GOD'S  WONDERF UL  WORK  IX  FRANCE. 


eral  leading  provincial  papers  of  France.  But  from 
January,  1879,  he  has  devoted  all  his  strength  and  tal- 
ents, by  pen  and  tongue,  to  the  evangelization  of  France. 
He  is  one  of  the  foremost  of  the  men  who,  in  every 
part  of  France,  in  theatres,  in  ballrooms,  in  barns, 
wherever  a  company  can  be  gathered,  are  addressing 
eager  multitudes  on  liberty  and  the  gospel  of  Christ. 
And  his  little  weekly  newspaper,  "  Le  Signal,"  is  the 
organ  and  chronicler  of  this  greatest  movement  in  the 
religious  history  of  our  generation. 

A  brief  abstract  of  the  notable  pamphlet  of  Revei- 
llaud  sounds  the  opening  note  of  the  march  in  which 
France  is  moving  forward — the  key-note,  we  were 
about  to  say;  but  it  must  be  remembered  that  this 
pamphlet  was  written  from  a  merely  secular  point  of 
view,  and  that,  beginning  with  such  tones  as  these,  the 
movement  soon  modulates  into  a  higher  and  nobler  key. 

The  progress  of  society  (says  the  writer)  revolves 
I  about  three  pivotal  questions — the  social  question,  the 
political,  the  religious.  Of  these,  in  the  France  of  to- 
day, only  the  latter  remains  to  be  settled;  and  about 
this  all  the  antagonist  forces  of  the  nation  are  engaged. 
The  two  parties  are  the  party  of  the  priesthood,  on  the 
one  hand,  identified  with  "  the  defeated  parties,"  royal- 
ist and  imperialist ;  and  on  the  other  hand  liberalism, 
which,  being  resolved  to  stand  by  human  rights  and 
the  Republic,  is  placed  in  necessary  hostility  to  the 
priesthood  and  its  allies. 


REVEILLAUD  AND  HIS  PAMPHLET. 


17 


We  are  forced  to  make  against  clericalism  this  in- 
dictment : 

It  is  a  peril  to  civil  society. 
It  is  a  peril  to  the  individual. 
It  is  a  peril  to  the  family. 

It  is  a  peril  to  all  the  interests  of  France,  whose 
backward  position  in  the  ranks  of  civilized  na- 
tions is  due  solely  to  its  subjection  to  the  Roman 
clergy. 

This  is  the  substance  of  the  first  chapter.  The 
point  of  it  is  the  necessity  of  a  religious  reformation. 

The  second  chapter  opens  by  anticipating  an  objec- 
tion :  "  Why  have  any  religion  at  all  ?  Is  it  not  enough 
to  have  a  good,  sensible  philosophy  ?" 

No.  If  this  had  been  enough,  clericalism  would 
have  been  driven  to  the  wall  long  ago.  The  experi- 
ment has  been  thoroughly  tried  in  France  for  eighty 
years,  and  has  failed.  The  power  of  the  priesthood 
tends  to  increase,  and  the  superstitions  of  the  Roman 
church  grow  worse  and  worse.  No  doubt  atheism  in 
its  various  forms — materialism,  pantheism,  positivism — 
has  advanced  and  spread ;  but  the  bota-geoisie — the 
bulk  of  the  well-to-do  citizens — have  a  horror  and 
dread  of  atheism,  and  by  this  very  fact  are  impelled  to 
support  the  only  church  they  know  of;  and  so  super- 
stition is  made  fashionable. 

"  Man  cannot  live  by  bread  alone."  All  his  higher 
cravings  are  famished  when  he  attempts  to  subsist  only 

Gii'8  Woik  in  Fran'  e.  -5 


1 8  GOD'S  WONDERFUL  WORK  IN  FRANCE. 


on  what  he  can  find  in  atheism.  And  the  writer  pro- 
ceeds to  a  brief  retrospect  of  the  various  experiments 
that  have  been  made  in  France  to  construct  a  substi- 
tute for  religion  without  the  basis  of  a  divine  revela- 
tion. 

France  cannot  live  without  religion.  The  only 
hope  of  a  religion  for  France  is  in  reforming  her  pres- 
ent religion,  not  in  inventing  a  new  one. 

"Jesus  planted  his  standard  so  high  above  all  earthly  ho- 
rizons, that  all  mankind  may  take  refuge  beneath  its  folds. 
And  if  the  shadow  of  his  cross,  extending  over  the  earth,  has 
caused  to  spring  up  nothing  but  virtues — a  law  of  love  and 
of  human  brotherhood — who  would  not  be  proud  to  be  called 
by  the  name  of  Christian  ? 

"  But,  some  one  will  say,  '  We  have  seen  the  very  reverse 
of  this — what  outrages  committed,  what  massacres  ordered, 
in  the  name  of  Christ  and  for  the  interests  of  religion !'  We 
answer  that  Christ  must  not  be  confounded  with  the  church 
of  Rome.  The  excesses  and  crimes  of  every  kind,  the  Saint 
Bartholomews  and  the  Dragonnades,  were  not  committed  by 
Christianity,  but  were  the  result  of  that  regime  of  priestcraft 
which  has  prevailed,  to  the  misery  of  the  ages,  in  the  organi- 
zation of  the  Roman  church. 

"  No,  Christianity  is  not  to  be  annihilated.  Nothing  is 
destroyed  unless  its  place  is  supplied  by  something  else. 
Catholicism  may  be  cast  out  by  Christianity,  but  the  gospel 
will  not  be  suppressed  until  something  else  shall  have  been 
found  to  take  the  place  of  it. 

"Let  us  then  remain  Christians,  and  snatch  from  the 
hands  of  our  enemies  the  standard  of  Christ  which  they  have 
usurped  and  dishonored.  Let  us  take  their  motto  for  our 
own,  "Hoc  signo  vinces!"   We  shall  never  make  a  better 


REVEILLAUD  AND  HIS  PAMPHLET.  19 


fight  against  clericalism  than  by  borrowing  from  the  gospel 
the  scourge  with  which  Jesus  drove  the  money-changers 
from  the  temple,  and  the  rebukes  with  which  he  stigmatized 
the  scribes  and  Pharisees." 

Chapter  third  is  entitled  "  The  Fruits  of  Protestant- 
ism," and  exhibits,  in  startling  figures,  mainly  taken 
from  Laveleye,  the  Belgian  publicist,  the  growing  de- 
cadence of  the  Catholic  nations  of  Europe  as  compared 
with  their  Protestant  competitors.  Two  centuries  ago 
the  unquestioned  supremacy  of  Europe  was  with  the 
Catholic  powers.  The  others  were  all  second-class 
powers.  Now  the  predominance  is  completely  the 
other  way.  In  1700,  France  represented  31  per  cent, 
of  the  strength  of  Europe;  now  it  represents  15  per 
cent. 

What  is  Protestantism  ?  In  the  discussion  of  this 
question,  the  writer  draws  a  clear  and  intelligent  con- 
trast between  it  and  its  antagonist  system,  and  shows 
where  is  the  "  hiding  of  its  power  "  of  uplifting  and  in- 
vigorating nations. 

He  goes  on  to  speak  of  the  work  of  the  Reforma- 
tion in  public  worship,  in  the  family,  in  the  school,  in 
the  ministry  ;  of  the  gospel  and  democracy  ;  and  of  the 
reasons  why  the  French  revolution  has  never  achieved 
a  settled  and  good  result. 

Chapter  fourth  is  devoted  to  certain  popular  ob- 
jections to  the  course  proposed.  And  Chapter  fifth 
and  last,  to  the  question,  "  Is  it  absurd  to  expect 


2c   GOD'S  WONDERFUL  WORK  IN  FRANCE. 


France  to  change  from  Catholic  to  Protestant  ?" 
And  he  recounts  the  forces,  natural  and  supernatu- 
ral, that  are  cooperating  to  that  end,  and  the  progress 
already  accomplished — so  remarkable  even  in  1878, 
but  so  little  then  in  comparison  with  what  was  about 
to  be. 


ACCESSIONS  TO  PROTESTANTISM. 


CHAPTER  III. 

Notable  Accessions  to  Protestantism.  Renou- 
vier  and  plllon  and  the  "  critique  philoso- 
phique."  Francisque  Sarcey.  In  Belgium, 
Laveleye  and  Frere-Orban.  Jules  Favre, 
and  the  Funeral  at  Versailles. 

"There  is  Protestantism  in  the  air"  was  the 
recent  exclamation  of  a  leading  French  journalist. 
How  completely  it  is  justified  by  the  facts,  will  be 
indicated  by  a  few  names  of  persons  who  have  lately 
renounced  their  connection  with  Romanism  and  enrolled 
themselves  as  Protestants. 

Simultaneously  with  the  appearance  of  Reveillaud's 
pamphlet,  there  sounded  out  from  a  strange  quarter — 
from  Avignon,  the  old  residence  of  the  popes — a  like 
voice  in  the  pages  of  one  of  the  foremost  Reviews  of 
France.  The  "Critique  Philosophique  "  is  a  monthly 
Review  of  politics  and  literature,  but  especially  of  phil- 
osophy, in  which  its  editor,  M.  Renouvier,  and  his 
assistant,  M.  Pillon,  have  won  deserved  eminence. 
So  earnestly  did  these  weighty  writers  undertake  the 
cause  of  Protestantism,  that  they  added  to  their 
monthly  Review  a  quarterly  supplement,  entitled  "La 
Critique  Religieuse,"  devoted  to  religious  discussion 


22   GOD'S  WONDERFUL  IVORK  IX  FRA.VCE. 


and  to  the  promotion  of  the  new  Protestant  move- 
ment. 

Just  before  the  Reveillaud  pamphlet,  appeared  a 
notable  article  in  the  "  Dix-neuvieme  Siecle,"  from  the 
pen  of  Francisque  Sarcey,  one  of  the  most  influential 
liberal  writers  in  France,  in  which  he  advises  all  lovers 
of  their  country,  rationalists,  indifferentists,  skeptics, 
and  Christians  who  are  simply  Christians  and  nothing 
else,  to  register  themselves  officially  as  belonging  to 
the  Protestant  community. 

In  the  "  Eglise  Libre"  oi  May,  1877,  appeared  the 
following  announcement :  "  M.  Turquet,  Republican 
member  of  the  Chamber  of  Deputies  from  the  de- 
partment of  the  Aisne,  has  joined  the  Protestant  church 
with  his  family.  We  learn  that  his  example  is  to  be 
followed  by  an  entire  village." 

Simultaneously  with  this  spontaneous  movement  in 
France  arose  a  like  movement  in  the  neighboring  and 
most  Catholic  country  of  Belgium.  About  the  begin- 
ning of  1S77,  Count  Goblet  d'Alvielle  published  in  the 
"  Revue  de  Belgique  "  an  article  which  made  no  small 
stir,  entitled  "Altar  over  against  Altar;  or  Practical 
Means  of  propagating  the  Reformation  in  Belgium." 

But  the  work  which  has  made  the  deepest  impres- 
sion, not  only  in  Belgium,  but  wherever  the  French 
language  is  spoken,  is  the  pamphlet  of  Emile  de 
Laveleye,  whose  rank  as  a  publicist  and  statistician  is 
recognized  die  world  over,  and  whose  arguments  in 


ACCESS/OA'S  TO  PROTESTANTISM.  23 


favor  of  the  change  from  Catholic  to  Protestant  are 
reinforced  by  his  personal  example.  The  title  of  his 
pamphlet  is  "  The  Future  of  the  Catholic  Nations." 
It  is  a  tract  of  only  a  few  pages,  but  of  irresistible  power. 
It  might  well  be  translated  into  every  language  of 
Christendom  as  a  warning  to  all  nations  of  the  tempo- 
ral penalties  that  attend  upon  the  cherishing  of  the 
Romish  superstitions.  There  is  no  wonder  that  the 
example  and  arguments  of  Laveleye  should  have  drawn 
with  him  out  of  Romanism  many  like-minded.  Such 
an  influence  reaches  down  as  well  as  up;  and  whole 
villages  in  Belgium  have  been  moved  by  it,  directly  or 
indirectly,  to  renounce  Catholicism,  and  transfer  them- 
selves and  their  families,  with  the  village  church  and 
school  buildings,  to  the  Protestant  communion. 

But  the  best  known  of  the  Belgians  who  have  gone 
with  the  Protestant  movement,  is  the  highest  man  in 
the  kingdom,  next  to  the  king  himself.  It  is  no  less 
than  the  Prime  Minister,  M.  Frere-Orban,  whose  reso- 
olute  but  wise  and  temperate  resistance  of  the  Ro- 
man power  in  its  encroachments  on  Belgian  indepen- 
dence has  been  the  admiration  of  the  world.  Belgium 
will  sometime  acknowledge  that  this  sturdy  and  suc- 
cessful fight  in  her  defence  was  due  to  her  having  at 
the  head  of  her  government  a  convert  to  Protestantism. 

In  like  manner  the  eminent  man  who  in  the  terrible 
crisis  after  Sedan  bore  on  his  shoulders  the  painful 
responsibility  of  the  French  foreign  affairs,  Jules  Favre, 


24    GOD'S  WONDERFUL  WORK  IN  FRANCE. 


added,  in  his  last  days,  to  his  many  civic  and  literary 
honors,  the  honor  of  openly  confessing  his  convictions 
of  the  truth  in  Jesus  Christ,  as  set  forth  in  the  wor- 
ship of  the  Protestant  church.  At  his  own  command, 
given  in  his  last  sickness,  the  religious  services  at  his 
4  funeral  were  conducted  by  the  pastor  of  the  Protestant 
church  at  Versailles,  where  he  had  been  wont  to  wor- 
ship. And  when,  with  words  of  "  reasonable,  religious 
and  holy  hope,"  the  body  of  the  departed  statesman 
was  carried  forth  to  burial  from  the  plain  meeting- 
house under  the  shadow  of  the  great  palace,  the  splen- 
did assembly  of  the  wise,  learned,  and  brilliant,  in  the 
new  Republic,  confessed  how  far  worthier  was  such  a 
ceremonial  of  such  an  occasion,  than  the  candles,  the 
tapestries,  the  incense,  and  the  chanting  files  of  shaven 
priests,  to  which  they  had  been  accustomed. 

"  How  decent  and  how  wise, 
How  glorious  to  behold, 
Beyond  the  pomp  that  charms  the  eyes, 
Or  rites  adorned  with  gold." 

The  names  that  have  thus  been  cited  are  irom  the 
number  of  the  adhesions  to  the  new  movement  that 
took  place  within  a  few  months  of  its  beginning.  If 
we  were  to  add  the  names  of  more  recent  converts  in 
high  positions,  the  list  would  grow  too  long.  But  the 
chief  progress  of  the  work  is  not  among  "the  wise, 
mighty,  and  noble,"  but  among  the  peasantry  of  the 
fields,  and  the  artisans  of  the  great  towns. 


THE  "CEUVRE  DES  CONFERENCES."  25 


CHAPTER  IV. 

The  "  CEuvre  des  Conferences."  The  Marks 
of  a  Divine  Work.  The  Dawn  of  Religious 
Liberty.  Protestantism  in  the  Government. 
Protestant  Worship  in  the  Palace  of  Ver- 
sailles. A  Week's  Work  of  the  "  Confer- 
ences." A  Letter  to  Republican  Peasants. 
A  Two  Hundred  Years'  Retrospect. 

Gibbon,  greatest  of  modern  historians,  climbed, 
like  Balaam,  to  a  height  from  which  he  could  behold 
the  whole  history  of  the  church,  and  essayed  to  curse 
the  people  of  God  ;  but  lo !  he  blessed  them  all  togeth- 
er. That  great  chapter  in  which  he  seeks  to  explain, 
by  visible  and  proximate  causes,  the  successful  prog- 
ress of  the  gospel  and  the  church  until  they  had  per- 
vaded the  Roman  Empire,  will  stand  to  all  time  as  a 
chapter  of  "the  Evidences  of  Christianity,"  showing 
how  the  work  of  God's  fatherly  providence  conspires 
■with  the  work  of  his  Son  and  the  work  of  his  Holy 
Spirit.  It  was  only  the  madness  of  the  undevout  his- 
torian that  could  hide  from  him— what  is  so  plain  to 
his  readers — the  hand  of  God  in  history,  making  its 
lines  of  influence  to  converge  upon  that  point  of  time 
when  "  He  bringeth  his  Only-begotten  into  the  world." 

God>  Woik  1J!  France.  J. 


26   GOD'S  WONDERFUL  WORK  IN  FRANCE. 


It  is  a  briefer  and  less  momentous,  but  still  a  paral- 
lel chapter  of  history,  which  will  recount  how,  while 
men's  minds,  unknown  to  each  other,  were  ripening 
these  thoughts,  in  France  and  Belgium  there  were  pre- 
paring, in  the  course  of  political  changes,  the  facilities 
for  diffusing  them  throughout  French-speaking  Eu- 
rope, and  the  soil  in  which  they  might  freely  fructify. 

How  great  is  the  change  that  has  come  over  the 
face  of  France  since  1873,  cannot  be  conceived  by  an 
American  without  an  effort.  It  is  hardly  a  hundred 
years  since  Protestants  in  France  were  tortured  and 
murdered  in  public  for  their  religion.  The  extreme 
forms  of  religious  persecution  were  brought  to  an  end 
by  the  furious  invective,  the  acrid  and  corrosive  sar- 
casm of  Voltaire.  And  in  the  next  generation  "  God's 
slaughtered  saints"  were  terribly  avenged  when  the 
atheism  that  had  been  gendered  by  corrupt  religion 
turned  fiercely  upon  its  own  parent,  and  made  it  the 
victim  instead  of  the  persecutor.  Down  to  these  last 
few  years  France  has  known  changes  in  the  direction  of 
persecution,  and  mitigations  in  the  bitterness  of  it,  but 
has  never  known  religious  liberty.  From  the  accession 
of  Napoleon  I.  to  the  descent  from  power  of  President 
MacMahon,  France  has  had  no  government  whose 
policy  was  not  that  of  concession  to  the  Roman  clergy, 
that  it  might  rule  through  their  influence. 

A  vivid  picture  of  what  France  was  in  this  respect, 
as  lately  as  under  the  MacMahon  presidency,  is  given 


THE  "  CEUVRE  DES  CONFERENCES:'  27 

in  the  Report  of  the  Secretary  of  one  of  the  Protestant 
Evangelization  Societies  of  France,  presented  April  6, 
1880.    Said  M.  Lorriaux  : 

"  While  there  is  a  growing  movement  of  tolerance  and 
sympathy  on  the  part  of  the  press  and  of  public  opinion, 
there  is  a  no  less  important  progress  in  our  legislation. 

"  I  recall  to  myself  how,  so  late  as  the  7th  of  June,  1873,  I 
was  expelled  by  the  mayor  and  the  gendarmes  from  a  hall 
where  I  was  peaceably  presiding  at  a  religious  service.  I 
glance  through  the  Society's  annals,  and  find  a  meeting- 
house closed  for  twenty  years  without  even  being  dedicated. 
I  find  a  pastor  dragged  to  prison  with  part  of  his  congrega- 
tion. I  find  hindrances,  suspicions,  prosecutions,  persecu- 
tions. Ah,  what  thanks  we  owe  to  those  who  within  these 
last  few  years  have  been  struggling  for  religious  liberty  !  At 
last  they  have  introduced  into  our  legislation  the  emancipa- 
ting provision  that  public  meetings  may  be  held  without 
permission  previously  obtained.  This  law,  which  has 
passed  the  House,  and  will  surely  pass  the  Senate,  will  be 
accompanied,  we  cannot  doubt,  by  two  great  measures  that 
shall  crown  the  structure  of  our  religious  liberties.  First,  the 
burying-grounds  will  become  public  property;  henceforth, 
no  more  burying  of  Protestants  in  shameful  places,  no  more 
leaving  of  their  bodies  (as  we  have  known  it  to  be  done)  for 
twenty  days  unburied,  while  waiting  for  justice  from  the  au- 
thorities. Secondly,  a  general  law  concerning  associations 
will  permit  the  establishment  of  regular  worship  wherever 
the  need  of  it  is  felt. 

"A  new  era  is  dawning  upon  us.  Now  for  the  first  time 
we  have  in  our  hands  this  great  instrument  of  evangelization, 
religious  liberty — liberty,  let  us  add,  which  we  claim,  not  for 
ourselves  alone,  but  for  every  one.  We  reprobate  and  repu- 
diate the  least  infringement  on  the  legitimate  rights  of  any 
citizen  whatever." 


28    GOD'S  WONDERFUL  WORK  IN  FRANCE. 


It  is  easy  and  instructive  to  trace  the  course  of 
events  by  which  this  era  of  religious  liberty  has  been 
brought  in  coincidently  with  the  general  waking  up  of 
mind  and  conscience  among  the  leaders  of  French 
thought.  It  was  natural  that,  under  the  "  Third  Em- 
pire," the  priesthood,  in  return  for  imperial  favors, 
should  lend  itself  to  the  support  of  imperial  tyrannies 
and  corruptions.  But  it  must  have  been  under  some 
infliction  of  judicial  blindness  that,  after  the  Republic 
had  come,  and  "come  to  stay,"  the  priesthood  should 
boldly  reassert  the  "  alliance  of  the  throne  and  the 
altar,"  so  identifying  its  cause  with  the  restoration  of 
abuses  and  oppressions,  the  mere  fading  tradition  of 
which  is  enough  to  madden  the  grandchildren  of  their 
victims.  It  is  by  its  own  folly  that  the  priesthood  has 
compelled  the  whole  liberal  party  to  declare  open  war 
upon  it,  and  has  justified  the  bold  challenge  of  Gam- 
betta  when  he  declared,  "The  foe  of  France  is  cleri- 
calism? 

A  singular  fact  presented  itself  to  the  observer 
when  the  government  of  President  MacMahon  had 
gone  down  on  this  issue,  whether  France  would  toler- 
ate a  government  of  priestcraft.  With  that  sobriety  of 
conduct  which  has  wonderfully  distinguished  the  Third 
Republic  from  its  two  predecessors,  they  proceeded  to 
install  in  the  offices  of  administration  men  whose  mod- 
eration and  capacity  for  affairs  had  been  well  proved 
in  public  life.    And  when,  by-and-by,  it  occurred  to 


THE  "  (EUVRE  DES  CONFERENCES."  29 


some  one  to  make  the  inquiry,  it  appeared  that  of  the 
nine  ministers  of  the  Waddington  Cabinet,  five  were 
Protestants — the  remaining  four  were  Catholics  or  free- 
thinkers. A  marvellous  thing,  that  the  little  persecu- 
ted remnant  of  the  Huguenot  church,  being  only  one 
in  twenty  of  the  population,  should  give  more  than 
one-half  of  its  chiefs  of  state  !  The  Freycinet  cabinet 
showed  a  like  proportion  of  Protestants ;  and  if  this 
has  now  been  supplanted  by  a  ministry  in  which  no 
Protestant  is  found,  their  leaving  power  is  not  less  hon- 
orable to  them  than  their  entering  on  it;  for  they  are 
supplanted  for  lack  of  zeal  in  pressing  the  laws  to  the 
disadvantage  of  their  immemorial  enemies,  who  have 
never  spared  in  executing  oppressive  laws  against  them. 
A  nobler  testimony  to  religious  liberty  was  never  borne 
than  this  which  the  Protestants  of  France  are  bearing 
to-day.  "  God's  slaughtered  saints "  begin  to  be 
avenged  indeed  when  the  persecutor  is  looking  to  the 
children  of  his  victims  for  defence  and  help. 

A  most  dramatic  illustration  of  the  changed  relation 
of  Protestantism  to  the  government  was  that  given  on 
Sunday,  November  2,  1879,  when,  the  meetinghouse 
at  Versailles  being  under  repairs,  Protestant  worship 
was  held,  by  permission  of  the  authorities,  in  a  hall  of 
the  Palace  of  Louis  XIV.,  at  Versailles.  The  place 
chosen  was  under  the  hall  of  the  Oeil-de-Bceuf,  not  far 
from  the  chamber  where,  in  17 15,  the  Grand  Monarque 
expired.    It  is  the  vast  room  decorated  by  Cotelle  with 


30    GOD'S  WONDERFUL  WORK  IX  FRANCE. 


paintings  of  the  royal  residences.  Before  a  great  can- 
vas representing  the  palace  and  park  of  St.  Cloud,  had 
been  set  up  a  temporary  pulpit;  and  through  the 
crowded  congregation  passed  the  President  of  the 
Consistory  of  Paris,  and  the  pastor  of  Versailles,  each 
bearing  a  copy  of  the  Holy  Scriptures,  and  with  them 
the  officers  of  the  congregation.  A  young  French 
poet,  who  was  among  the  worshippers,  utters  the  sen- 
timents which  the  occasion  could  not  but  inspire  : 

"  Not  without  a  glow  of  honest  pride  we  passed  before  the 
colossal  bronze  statue  of  Louis,  stretching  out  its  hand  as  if 
to  defend  his  palace  against  the  intrusion  of  modern  and 
heretical  ideas.  And  when  we  heard  the  Bible  and  the  Hu- 
guenot liturgy  read  in  that  building  in  which,  just  overhead, 
Madame  de  Maintenon  had  induced  Louis  XIV.  to  sign  the 
Revocation  of  the  Edict  of  Nantes,  well  nigh  two  hundred 
years  ago,  we  were  thrilled  with  emotion,  and  blessed  God 
from  our  inmost  heart.  At  that  solemn  moment  our  thoughts 
seemed  to  bring  back  the  dead.  On  the  one  side,  Bossuet, 
acclaiming,  in  his  mighty  voice,  the  new  Theodosius  and  the 
new  Constantine,  under  the  very  roof  in  which  we  were 
singing  forth  the  old  138th  Psalm  : 

"'Ilfaut,  grand  Dieu.  que  de  mon  cceur 
La  sainte  ardeur 
Te  glorifie, 
Qu'  a  toi,  des  mains  et  de  la  voix 
Devant  les  rois 
Je  psalmodie ;' 

("'Great  God,  to  thee  my  heart  upsprings, 
And  joyful  sings, 
Thy  glory  raising ; 
Unawed  by  kings,  with  hands  and  voice 
I  will  rejoice 
I.j  thanks  and  praising;') 


THE  "  CEUVRE  DES  CONFERENCES?  31 


that  court  in  which  superstition  and  immorality  joined  hands 
to  hold  France  in  subjection ;  those  courtiers,  beribboned 
and  beplumed,  among  whom  the  king  moved  about  as  a  god 
come  down  to  earth — these  on  the  one  side.  On  the  other 
side,  our  proscribed  forefathers  of  the  '  pretended  reformed 
religion,'  forced  to  quit  the  ruins  of  their  churches,  hunted 
and  tortured  by  the  dragoons,  gathering  in  caves  or  forest- 
clearings;  those  glorious  camisards  who  harried  and  foiled 
the  troops  of  Baville  and  Villars  and  Louvois,  that  had  vainly- 
dreamed  of  exterminating  the  Reformation.  The  day  of  our 
vindication  was  come  !  What  would  have  been  the  rage  of 
the  one,  what  the  joy  of  the  other,  could  they  have  foreseen 
that  in  two  centuries  the  very  palace  of  Versailles  would  re- 1 
sound  with  the  worship  of  a  Protestant  congregation !" 

The  Spirit  of  God  had  put  it  into  the  hearts  of 
many  Frenchmen,  both  of  the  old  and  of  the  new  Prot- 
estants, to  speak  to  the  people  the  free  gospel — the 
gospel  of  freedom ;  and  (as  will  soon  appear)  had  wa- 
kened among  all  the  people  an  earnest  desire  to  hear. 
Now  the  Providence  of  God,  by  the  new  enactments  of 
religious  liberty,  flings  wide  an  effectual  door — rather, 
flings  down  all  walls  and  barriers — before  the  feet  of 
his  messengers.  They  are  not  slow  in  entering  upon 
their  work — not  the  work  of  preaching  to  religious 
worshippers,  but  that  of  haranguing  the  general  crowds 
of  Frenchmen,  in  all  towns  and  villages,  concerning 
that  Protestant  Christianity  of  which  they  have  heard 
nothing  except  that  "  it  is  everywhere  spoken  against." 

A  more  just  impression  of  the  character  and  gran- 
deur of  this  "  cenvre  des  confere?ices" — lecturing  work — 


32    COD'S  WONDERFUL  WORK  IN  FRANCE. 


can  hardly  be  given,  than  by  transcribing  from  a  sin- 
gle number  of  M.  Reveillaud's  newspaper,  "  Le  Signal," 
the  news  of  one  week  in  the  spring  of  1880. 

The  first  items  come  from  the  South — the  depart- 
ment of  Vaucluse,  rich  in  sentimental  memories  of  Pe- 
trarch and  his  Laura,  in  histories  and  monuments  of 
the  sojourn  of  the  popes  at  Avignon,  and  in  sacred  tra- 
ditions of  Huguenot  confessors  and  martyrs.  [It  is  a 
fact  to  lay  to  heart  for  those  immensely  over-wise  peo- 
^  pie  like  Mr.  Buckle  and  Dr.  Draper,  who  assure  us 
that  Protestantism  will  not  do  for  southern  climates 
and  Latin  races,  the  fact  that  these  semi-tropical  re- 
gions and  this  population  of  Italian  strain  are  the  region 
of  all  the  continent  of  Europe  where  Protestant  Chris- 
tianity in  its  "baldest"  form  has  given  the  strongest 
proofs  of  a  tenacious  hold  on  men's  hearts  and  con- 
sciences.] At  Cavaillon,  a  considerable  town,  fifty  or 
sixty  families  have  lately  withdrawn  from  the  Roman 
church,  and  connected  themselves  with  the  Reformed 
church.  They  are  reported  to  be  constant  in  attend- 
ance at  the  worship,  which  is  held  by  permission  in  the 
courthouse,  and  as  talking  about  securing  a  house  of 
worship  of  their  own,  as  the  court-room  has  become 
too  small.  At  Pertuis,  another  large  town  on  the  Du- 
rance, the  Protestants  have  just  secured  a  larger  place 
of  worship,  the  dedication  of  which  was  attended  by  a 
very  large  concourse,  the  major  part  of  whom  were 
Catholics ;  some  of  these  have  since  become  regular 


THE  "  (EUVRE  DES  CONFERENCES:'  33 


attendants  upon  the  meetings.  A  pastor  at  this  town 
went  to  the  neighboring  village  of  Villelaure  to  minis- 
ter to  the  four  or  five  Protestants  who  live  there.  They 
told  him  that  there  would  be  a  crowd  at  the  meeting, 
and  he  accordingly  took  for  his  subject,  "  Protestant- 
ism, its  origin  and  its  doctrines."  The  little  room  was 
crowded  with  upwards  of  eighty  people.  He  went 
again  on  a  Sunday,  and  they  had  engaged  a  hall  half 
as  large  again;  but  this  also  was  found  too  small.  He 
is  to  go  again  and  speak  in  the  ballroom — the  largest 
room  in  the  place.  The  minister  thinks  that  the  move- 
ment is  one  of  genuine  religious  interest. 

So  much  for  the  South — the  old  seat  of  persecution 
and  martyrdom.  Now  hear  from  M.  Fourneau,  who 
has  made  a  visit  along  the  banks  of  the  Loire,  a  region 
hitherto  unvisited  by  Protestant  speakers.  "  Last  Tues- 
day I  set  out  for  Blois  with  high  hopes,  which  have 
not  been  disappointed.  That  evening  I  demonstrated 
the  superiority  of  the  gospel  to  all  human  religions, 
before  an  audience  of  nearly  two  hundred  and  fifty  per- 
sons. The  next  day  they  nearly  all  came  again,  and 
others  with  them,  making  an  audience  of  nearly  three 
hundred,  all  that  the  little  meetinghouse  would  hold. 
The  theme  of  my  second  lecture  was,  '  The  regenera- 
tion of  society  cannot  be  effected  by  clericalism,  nor  by 
free-thinking,  but  by  the  gospel,  known,  received,  and 
practised,  first  in  the  family,  then  in  the  community. 
The  greater  part  of  the  audience  were  Catholics,  but 

God'*  Worfc  in  Franco.  c 


34    GOB'S  WONDERFUL  WORK  IN  FRANCE. 


manifested  full  sympathy  with  the  speaker.  An  Eng- 
lish friend,  who  has  been  living  at  Tours  for  several 
years,  had  hired  for  two  days  the  Circus  of  that  city, 
having  about  fourteen  hundred  sittings,  and  announced 
the  lectures  by  posters.  There  were  eight  hundred 
persons  at  the  first  lecture,  and  over  one  thousand  at 
the  second ;  the  subjects  were  the  same  as  at  Blois. 
The  speaker  is  to  return  for  a  third  lecture  on  the  Per- 
son of  Christ.  The  population  of  Tours  is  one  half 
clerical,  the  other  half  infidel ;  and  there  was  no  min- 
cing of  words  with  either  of  '  these  two  ways  of  hin- 
dering the  soul  from  seeking  God,'  and  yet  the  speak- 
er was  received  with  such  demonstrations  as  encourage 
him  to  go  again  with  the  simple  message  of  salvation. 
At  the  end  of  the  second  lecture  twelve  hundred  tracts 
were  distributed,  and  the  speaker  lamented  that  he  had 
left  behind  him  one  hundred  and  twenty  Testaments  he 
had  meant  to  bring." 

Turn  to  the  map  of  France,  and  look  for  the  famous 
old  city  of  Troyes,  on  the  upper  Seine.  To  the  south- 
west of  it  stretches  a  hilly  region,  sprinkled  with  nu- 
merous villages,  called  "the  Forest  of  Othe."  In  the 
sixteenth  century  this  was  a  Protestant  region ;  but  the 
reformed  churches  perished  under  persecutions  and 
massacres  and  outrages,  for  which  the  French  lan- 
guage has  names  untranslatable  in  English.  .  The  pas- 
tors were  murdered  or  driven  into  exile.  The  meet- 
inghouses were  closed  and  desecrated,  or  burned  to 


THE  "  CEUVRE  DES  COA'FEREACES."  35 


the  ground.  No  trace  of  the  ancient  Huguenot  spirit 
remained  discoverable  except  a  marked  antipathy  to 
kings  and  priests.  The  pastor  of  one  solitary  little 
Protestant  church  of  that  region  had  the  thought  of 
passing  among  these  villages  and  trying  to  rekindle 
among  the  people  that  faith  which  had  been  quenched 
in  the  blood  of  their  fathers.    And  this  is  his  report : 

March  14,  at  Neuville,  out  of  a  population  of  500, 
200  persons  were  present  at  the  meeting,  fifty  of  them 
women,  notwithstanding  the  efforts  of  the  priest,  who 
sent  out  personal  invitations  to  gather  the  people  at 
his  own  house.  Hardly  any  one  accepted  his  invita- 
tion, and  even  the  parish  clerk  was  on  the  platform 
with  the  Protestant  pastor.  The  hall  was  lighted  gra- 
tuitously, and  on  the  platform  were  the  dignitaries  of 
the  place — a  retired  army  captain  and  others.  The 
argument  of  Pastor  Russier,  that  "  clericalism  is  not 
Christianity,  but  only  a  caricature  of  it,"  was  received 
with  frequent  applause,  notwithstanding  the  request 
for  silence.  At  the  close  were  distributed  200  of  M. 
Bouchard's  tracts,  and  twenty  copies  of  M.  Reveillaud's 
little  pamphlet,  "  The  Religious  Question  and  the  Prot- 
estant Solution,"  were  sold.  The  next  day,  March  15, 
at  Aix-en-Othe,  there  were  350  present,  by  actual 
count.  There  was  the  same  enthusiastic  reception  of 
the  pastor,  with  hearty  thanks  for  his  discourse,  and 
invitations  to  him  to  come  again.  On  the  16th,  at 
St.  Mards,  he  was  taken  to  see  the  house  which  three 


36    GOD'S  WONDERFUL  WORK  IN  FRANCE. 


centuries  ago  was  a  Protestant  church,  and  the  site  of 
the  ancient  burying-ground,  near  which  stands  a  cross 
still  called  "  the  Preacher's  Cross."  At  the  meeting  in 
the  evening  there  was  an  audience  of  456  persons,  by 
actual  count,  not  less  than  100  of  whom  were  women. 
( Observe  that  the  number  of  women  present  is  reck- 
oned a  strong  sign  of  success.    Ordinarily  the  women 

^  are  the  last  to  let  go  the  superstitions  of  the  old  church.) 
When  the  lecturer,  alluding  to  the  ancient  scenes  of 
persecution  which  the  place  had  witnessed,  reminded 
the  people  that  in  the  neighboring  woods  a  pastor  had 
been  assassinated  by  his  own  nephew  at  the  instigation 

n!  of  the  Jesuits,  and  exclaimed,  "  Almost  every  one  of 
you  has  Huguenot  blood  in  his  veins !"  a  visible  sen- 
sation ran  through  the  assembly.  After  the  meeting 
the  people  bought  forty  copies  of  M.  Reveillaud's  pam- 
phlet. Just  so  on  the  17th,  at  Maraye-en-Othe,  there 
were  255  hearers,  100  of  them  women ;  the  same  atten- 
tion, applause,  exclamations  of  "  Good  !"  "  True !"  and 
the  same  invitations  to  the  pastor  to  return,  which  he 
means  to  do,  and  to  send  other  lecturers  to  the  same 
field. 

It  is  observed  that  the  Liberal  newspapers  in  the 
country  towns,  in  general,  take  favorable  notice  of  this 
Protestant  propaganda,  sometimes  printing  full  reports 
of  the  discourses.  The  Reveil  National  of  Dreux,  at 
the  close  of  a  full  report  of  one  of  M.  Reveillaud's  dis- 
courses, added  these  words  : 


THE  •'  CEUVRE  DES  CONFERENCES:'  37 


"  We  need  not  say  that  this  peroration  (proposing  y 
to  take  up  anew  the  work  of  the  Reformation  that/v\ 
was  broken  off  in  the  sixteenth  century)  was  almost 
drowned  in  applause.  M.  Reveillaud  has  had  a  great 
success ;  every  word  of  his  has  gone  to  the  heart  of 
his  hearers.  We  must  have  another  opportunity  to 
hear  the  brave  and  ringing  utterance  of  a  man  who  is 
not  afraid  to  put  his  finger  on  the  wound." 

Finally,  to  the  summary  of  the  news  of  the  week  is 
added  this  item — the  appearance  of  a  new  tract  by  M. 
Paul  Bouchard,  the  earliest  leader  in  this  great  exodus 
from  the  house  of  bondage  in  the  Roman  church.  This 
new  tract,  like  the  four  that  have  preceded  it  from  the 
same  pen,  is  a  cheap  little  vest-pocket  affair  of  sixteen 
pages,  sold  for  distribution  at  three  dollars  a  thousand. 
This  one  is  addressed  to  Republican  peasants,  for, 
strange  to  say,  the  French  peasants  have  become 
clearly  and  firmly  Republican.  The  tract  tells  the 
undeniable  story  of  the  constant  alliance  of  the  Catho-  >i 
lie  church  in  France  with  despotism,  and  winds  up  N 
with  this  practical  conclusion  : 

"  Disgusted  with  religion  as  you  have  been — you  who  are 
husbands  and  fathers — by  the  abuses  of  that  religion  in  which 
you  have  had  the  misfortune  to  be  born,  you  see,  neverthe- 
less, that  we  need  a  religion.  Reason  tells  you  so,  your  heart 
confirms  it.  What  better  course,  then,  than  to  quit  that  Cath- 
olic religion,  source  of  all  our  woes,  and  go  over  to  the  rival 
church,  in  which  you  find  liberty,  independence,  and  the  sat- 
isfaction of  all  your  religious  wants  ? 


38    GOD'S  WONDERFUL  WORK  EV  FRANCE. 


"There,  no  enforced  celibacy — consequently  no  confes- 
sional. You  have  to  do  with  good  husbands  and  fathers, 
ready  to  render  you  every  service  and  encouragement  you 
may  seek.  Saints  and  relics  they  have  none ;  to  trust  in  God, 
to  bow  before  him  alone,  to  pray  to  him  without  intermedi- 
ary, and  tell  him  our  sorrow  for  our  sins,  and  ask  his  help, 
and  to  guide  our  lives  according  to  the  morality  of  the  gos- 
pel— this  is  Protestant  teaching ;  it  is  none  other  than  that  of 
the  Master  himself,  as  it  has  come  to  us  through  the  primi- 
tive church.  Accept  it  for  your  own.  Become  Protestants. 
It  will  be  the  best  service  you  can  render  to  our  government, 
which  knows  not  how  to  protect  us  from  the  Roman  church 
so  long  as  you  persist  in  adhering  to  it.  Free  yourselves 
from  this  most  odious  of  tyrannies,  and  history  will  declare 
that,  liberated  by  themselves,  the  peasantry  of  France  have 
saved  the  Republic." 

And  then,  by  way  of  postscript,  the  little  tract  gives 
directions  how  to  register  one's  self  as  Protestant,  and 
recommends  applying  to  the  nearest  Protestant  pas- 
tor. 

It  is  not  easy  to  refuse  ourselves  the  pleasure  of 
adding  here  some  of  the  inspiring  reports  that  come 
from  every  part  of  France  to  indicate  the  welcome  that 
meets,  and  often  anticipates,  the  coming  of  the  evange- 
list. But  perhaps  the  adding  of  incidents  culled  from 
the  whole  course  of  this  "  lecture  work"  would  weaken 
the  just  impression  to  be  derived  from  the  contempla- 
tion of  the  si?igle  week's  news,  of  which  a  part  has  just 
been  given.  What  hath  God  wrought !  No  wonder 
that  the  eloquence  of  Pastor  Puaux,  at  the  meeting  of 
the  "  Central  Protestant  Evangelization  Society,"  in 


THE  ,:  CEUVRE  DES  CONFERENCES:'  39 


April,  1880,  was  kindled  by  the  retrospect  of  two  hun- 
dred years.    Said  he, 

"  My  thoughts  have  been  carried  back  two  centuries,  al- 
most to  a  day.  It  was  in  June,  that  the  Jesuit  Society, 
faithful  to  its  plans  of  perfidy  and  treason,  holding  control  of 
the  mind  of  the  king,  was  marching  on  to  supreme  power, 
seeking  with  a  detestable  ferocity  the  ruin  of  the  Protestants. 
The  king  gave  docile  ear  to  them,  and  was  induced  to  declare 
that  no  one  of  his  Catholic  subjects  should  be  permitted,  un- 
der any  pretext,  to  embrace  the  Protestant  Reformed  Reli- 
gion, under  pain  of  perpetual  banishment.  It  was  the  pre- 
lude of  the  storm  which  broke  in  the  revocation  of  the  Edict 
of  Nantes.  Charenton  crumbles ;  and  in  my  own  Normandy, 
in  a  few  years,  the  great  church  of  Rouen,  that  numbered 
15,000  souls,  is  brought  to  naught.  From  Dieppe  one-half 
the  population  goes  into  exile,  and  in  Havre  not  one  Protes- 
tant remains.  The  iniquity  is  consummated,  and  from  his 
banishment  comes  back  the  despairing  cry  of  the  fugitive, 
'  Why  must  they  tear  the  Frenchman's  heart  out  of  our  bos- 
om ?'  What  a  conflict  was  that,  and  what  times  were  those 
that  followed  it!  Children  torn  from  their  mothers'  arms, 
galley-slaves  dying  for  the  faith  of  Christ,  pastors  bleeding 
on  the  wheel  or  dangling  from  the  gibbet — such  is  the  history 
of  the  Reformation  in  France. 

"  In  the  eighteenth  century,  any  one  having  dealings  with 
a  Protestant  is  accounted  infamous ;  and  when  at  last  the 
hour  of  deliverance  strikes,  the  old  faith  of  the  Reformation 
has  been  so  far  lost,  that  not  far  from  this  place  a  pastor  bap- 
tizes '  into  the  name  of  the  Supreme  Existence.' 

"  The  nineteenth  century  begins,  and  Paris  has  one  pastor 
and  one  meetinghouse. 

"  And  now  behold  how  it  fares  with  us  to-day ! 

"  This  is  no  place  to  talk  of  discouragement  or  despair.  I 
have  no  love  for  those  prophets  of  evil  who  take  pleasure  in 


40    GOD'S  WONDERFUL  WORK  IN  FRANCE. 


saying  that  the  Latin  races  are  doomed  to  irremediable  de- 
cay. No !  this  is  not  to  be.  Into  this  generous  and  genial 
mass  of  French  society  you  have  only  to  infuse  new  princi- 
ples, and  you  shall  see  coming  forth  again  from  their  ashes 
those  Huguenots  of  the  sixteenth  century,  of  whom  Bunsen 
said,  'They  are  the  most  glorious  impersonation  of  manhood 
to  be  found  in  history.'  " 

The  history  of  evangelization  in  Saint  Just  and  its 
vicinity  may  be  given  as  one  more  illustration,  and  a 
very  brief  one,  of  the  attitude  of  the  French  common 
people  towards  the  gospel.  Observe  that  this  is  a  town 
of  Picardy,  on  the  railroad  line  from  Paris  to  Calais, 
in  a  region  that  has  not  been  reached  for  nearly  three 
hundred  years  by  any  Protestant  influence.  Until  the 
visit  of  M.  Reveillaud,  very  early  in  1880,  the  popula- 
tion had  been  in  utter  ignorance  of  what  Protestantism 
was.  Owing  to  some  special  occasion  of  dissatisfaction 
with  the  Roman-catholic  clergy  and  their  teachings, 
M.  Reveillaud  was  sent  for  to  give  an  address.  He 
awakened  an  eager  interest,  which  his  brief  visit  did 
not  suffice  to  satisfy ;  and  Dr.  de  Pressense  was  sent  for 
on  a  like  business.  But  the  more  they  heard,  the  more 
they  wished  to  hear.  M.  Dhombres,  one  of  the  most 
eloquent  preachers  in  Paris,  went  thither  and  found  an 
audience  of  a  thousand  souls  assembled  to  hear  his 
declaration  of  a  pure  and  simple  gospel.  The  people 
responded  with  a  cordial  and  earnest  acceptance  of  it. 
The  seed  thus  sown  was  watered,  from  time  to  time, 


THE  "  CEUVRE  DES  COXFEREA'CES." 


41 


by  other  preachers ;  and  at  the  end  of  eight  months 
from  M.  Reveillaud's  visit,  the  harvest  was  ready  to  be 
gathered  and  a  church  to  be  organized.  M.  Reveillaud 
and  Pastor  Lorriaux,  Secretary  of  the  Societe,  Ccntrale 
d tlvang'elisation,  went  on  to  Saint  Just  to  aid  in  the 
organization.  Three  hundred  men  (out  of  a  town  of 
two  thousand)  had  gathered,  by  special  invitation,  to 
meet  them.  These  were  the  leading  men  of  the  town, 
the  men  of  wealth,  position,  and  influence,  animated 
with  the  earnest  and  devout  desire  to  lay  the  founda- 
tion of  a  Protestant  community  and  a  gospel  church. 
They  needed  instruction  in  all  the  details  of  Protestant 
church  organization  and  worship;  but  they  had  the 
teachableness  of  children.  They  were  promised  a  pas- 
tor who  would  "  expound  unto  them  the  way  of  God 
more  perfectly."  They  were  ready  to  give  of  their 
substance  towards  the  building  of  the  new  church,  and 
on  the  spot  made  a  subscription  amounting  to  1,300 
francs. 

On  the  way  to  Saint  Just,  M.  Reveillaud  took  the 
opportunity  to  respond  to  another  invitation  of  the 
same  sort  that  had  first  introduced  him  to  the  people 
of  Saint  Just.  He  had  been  invited  to  Warloy,  a  town 
of  three  thousand  people,  near  Amiens,  to  inaugurate  a 
Protestant  religious  movement.  There  was  no  hall  in 
the  town  that  could  hold  the  people  who  wished  to 
hear,  and  so  a  large  tent  was  pitched  for  the  purpose. 
Two  thousand  people  were  estimated  to  be  present. 

Ood'*  Woik  (d  F.-uca.  6 


42    GOD'S  WONDERFUL  WORK  IN  FRANCE. 


On  the  platform  behind  the  speaker  were  seated  the 
mayors  of  six  of  the  adjoining  villages,  together  with 
several  members  of  the  Council-general  of  the  Depart- 
ment. It  was  an  impressive  demonstration  this  meet- 
ing (such  as  would  not  have  been  tolerated  in  France 
for  centuries  before),  as  manifesting  the  deep  alienation 
of  the  French  people  from  the  Roman  church,  and 
their  eager  desire,  not  to  abolish  religion,  but  to  seek  a 
better  and  purer  Christianity.  The  argument  of  M. 
Reveillaud  was  followed  with  closest  attention  through- 
out his  two  hours'  address,  and  with  constant  marks 
of  sympathy  and  assent.  Everything  prophesied  re- 
sults similar  to  those  at  Saint  Just ;  while  the  leading 
men  from  the  different  communes  "  besought  that  the 
same  words  might  be  preached"  in  their  villages  "on 
the  next  Sabbath." 


THE  McALL  MISSION. 


43 


CHAPTER  V. 

The  McAll  Mission.    A  Brief  Survey  by  Dr. 
Horatius  Bonar. 

Probably  many  of  the  persons  who  will  read  the 
title-page  of  this  pamphlet  will  say  at  once,  "  The  great 
work  in  France — that  means,  of  course,  the  McAll  Mis- 
sion," and  will  wonder,  as  they  read  on,  to  find  them- 
selves mistaken. 

^  The  "great  work  in  France"  is  not  a  mission.  It 
has  not  been  begun  or  carried  on  by  human  planning 
or  organizing.  "  It  is  the  Lord's  doing,  and  it  is  mar- 
vellous in  our  eyes."  No  phrase  can  better  describe  it 
than  that  which  was  used  twenty  years  ago  of  America 
by  one  of  the  most  illustrious  of  French  Protestants — 
our  loyal  friend  in  an  hour  ol  great  darkness — "  the 
uprising  of  a  great  people  " — un  grand  peuple  qui  se 

v  relive  But  parallel  with  it,  incidental  to  it,  has  gone 
forward  another  work,  not  less  divine  for  being  also 
more  human,  the  McAll  Mission. 

It  is  not  difficult  to  explain  how  the  McAll  Mission 
should  be  known  and  honored  throughout  Protestant 
Christendom,  while  the  greater  work,  to  which  it  stands 
related,  should  have  come,  as  the  kingdom  of  heaven 
is  wont  to  come,  "  without  observation."    It  is  just  be- 


44    GOD'S  WONDERFUL  WORK  IN  FRANCE. 


cause  it  is  a  mission.  It  was  begun  by  one  noble  and 
believing  man,  in  an  alien  land,  drawing  on  the  sym- 
pathies of  his  own  countrymen  for  help  in  money  and 
personal  assistance.  Naturally  he  did  not  fail  of  his 
duty  in  making  known  his  work  to  those  whose  aid  he 
sought.  Furthermore,  the  place  where  his  work  was 
done  was  the  very  focus  of  the  whole  world's  travel — 
Paris — -and  soon  became  the  object  of  the  personal 
attention  of  a  multitude  .of  Christian  travellers,  espe- 
cially from  Great  Britain  and  America,  many  of  whom 
found  a  delight  beyond  anything  else  the  "  Grand 
Tour  "  could  offer  them,  in  the  humble  ministries  to 
which  they  were  invited  by  the  McAll  Mission.  The 
eyes  of  its  friends  have  traced  its  progress  and  expan- 
sion till  10  or  12  of  the  great  cities  of  France  are  feeling 
its  influence.  But  no  one  has  been  able  to  trace  the 
course  of  that  influence  which,  in  a  thousand  villages 
and  hamlets  in  every  part  of  France,  has  wakened  a 
craving  desire  to  know  what  is  the  religion  of  Christ's 
own  gospel. 

It  is  this  reason,  and  this  reason  only — that  the 
McAll  Mission  is  already  made  known  in  books  acces- 
sible to  every  reader — that  dissuades  us  from  dwelling 
proportionately  on  the  history  of  this  most  noble  and 
most  Christian  charity.  The  work  of  Dr.  Horatius 
Bonar,  entitled,  "  The  White  Fields  of  France,"  has 
been  republished  in  America  in  two  editions,  one  of 
them  at  the  price  of  ten  cents.    And  one  who  reads 


THE  life  ALL  MISS/OX. 


45 


this  story  will  hardly  need  additional  details,  though 
he  will  be  sure  to  wish  for  them. 

All  that  need  here  be  said  may  easily  be  condensed 
from  a  briefer  statement  just  prepared  by  the  same  pen, 
and  addressed  to  English  Christians. 

"  The  McAll  Mission  is  carrying  the  Book  of  God  and  the 
Gospel  of  Christ  to  all  parts  of  Paris  and  France.  Every- 
where there  is  welcome  entrance,  and  a  desire  to  hear  the 
new  religion  called  '  the  Gospel '  that  has  been  brought  over 
from  England.  Men,  women,  and  children,  flock  in  crowds 
to  listen.  It  is  no  labor  to  gather  an  audience.  Hire  a  hall, 
advertise  a  meeting,  and  the  people  come.  They  come  from 
the  worst  and  wildest  dens  of  Parisian  faubourgs ;  they  come, 
not  to  smile  or  to  scoff  or  to  wonder,  but  to  receive  into  their 
hearts  the  divine  message  of  life.  They  come,  week  after 
week,  with  eyes  and  ears  all  open,  to  drink  in  the  unaccus- 
tomed sounds  and  unheard-of  truths,  from  the  Scripture  read, 
from  the  hymn  sung,  from  the  words  of  the  messenger,  spo- 
ken in  those  tones  of  love  to  which  they  have  been  strangers. 
They  come  to  join  in  prayers,  uttered,  not  in  Latin,  but  in 
their  own  dear  French.  They  come  to  sing  the  joyful  hymn, 
whose  words  and  music  go  to  their  inmost  souls.  They  come 
to  hear  the  gospel  or  the  epistle  or  the  psalm,  or  the  parables 
of  the  Master,  or  the  discourses  of  the  servants ;  and  go  away 
thinking  they  had  never  in  their  lives  heard  anything  so  sweet 
and  beautiful,  so  suitable  to  their  wants,  and  so  unlike  any- 
thing that  they  had  ever  been  taught  by  bishop  or  cure\  It  is 
all  so  simple,  so  intelligible,  yet  so  grand  and  new.  '  God  so 
loved  the  world,  that  he  gave  his  only-begotten  Son'!  Eter- 
nal life  the  free  gift  of  God — never  had  the  cathedral  or  the 
parish  church  echoed  to  such  a  sound !  No  wonder  that  they  , 
come. 

"  The  beginning  was  small.  One  poor  but  earnest  request 


46    GOD'S  WONDERFUL  WORK  IN  FRANCE. 


made  to  Mr.  McAll  by  an  ouvrier  in  a  Belleville  cafe — "  Oh, 
teach  us  your  religion  " — was  the  seed  from  which  a  great 
tree  has  sprung.  That  seed  fell  into  the  ground  in  August, 
1871.  That  tree  has  spread  its  branches  over  Paris,  and  is 
spreading  them  over  France.  It  has  only  had  eight  years  to 
grow,  and  already  it  numbers  in  all  thirty-seven  of  these 
goodly  boughs.  If  the  Christians  of  England  would  awake 
and  measure  the  magnitude  of  the  enterprise,  pouring  in  of 
their  abundance  into  the  empty  coffers  of  the  Mission,  the 
work  might,  without  difficulty,  widen  itself  out  on  every  side. 
The  '  open  door  which  no  man  can  shut '  is  that  which  we 
now  see  in  France;  a  'great  door  and  effectual,'  such  as  has 
never  been  seen  in  that  land  before.  '  I  have  much  people  in 
that  city' is  the  word  of  cheer  which  we  get  in  connection 
with  that  open  door. 

"  It  was  to  the  cry  of  the  workingman  of  Belleville  that  Mr. 
McAll  responded  when  he  left  his  English  home,  broke  his 
pastoral  tie,  came  over  to  Paris,  and  set  up  his  first  station  in 
the  Rue  Julien  Lacroix,  in  January,  1872.  Without  shrinking, 
yet  not  without  many  misgivings,  did  he  and  Mrs.  McAll 
stand  at  the  door  of  that  hall  on  the  first  evening — strangers 
in  a  strange  land — to  invite  the  wild  Communists  to  enter 
and  hear  some  English  friends  speak  to  them  of  the  love  of 
Christ.  They  had  boldly  gone  into  the  very  heart  of  Parisian 
Communism,  with  nothing  in  their  hands  but  the  Bible,  in  a 
district  of  which  the  Commissary  of  Police  has  said,  '  The 
worst  spot  in  St.  Giles',  London,  would  be  more  easily 
worked.' 

"  It  was  to  like  cries  from  other  parts  of  the  city  that  he 
responded  year  after  year ;  till  now  there  are  twenty-four  of 
these  gospel-stations,  like  torches  shedding  their  glad  light 
into  the  dens  of  crime  and  ignorance  ;  supplanting  the  wine- 
shop, outrivalling  the  political  club,  quieting  Communism, 
substituting  the  Bible  for  Voltaire,  teaching  the  holy  cantique 
instead  of  the  lewd  or  revolutionary  song,  pointing  to  the 


THE  J  A- ALL  MISSION. 


47 


true  cross,  attracting  ten  thousand  weekly  hearers  to  the 
good  news  of  God's  free  love,  and  sending  out  into  the  ob- 
scurest homes  the  message  of  the  heavenly  reconciliation. 

"  There  are  now,  as  we  have  noticed,  twenty-four  of  these 
mission-stations.  They  girdle  Paris  like  its  own  Ceinture 
Railway  ;  each  at  a  suitable  distance  from  the  other,  and  each 
planted  in  the  midst  of  destitution  and  wickedness  and  igno- 
rance. In  connection  with  these  there  are  schools,  classes, 
mothers'  meetings,  prayer-meetings ;  there  are  also  evange- 
lists, visitors,  tract  distributers,  and  helpers  of  various  kinds, 
male  and  female,  all  under  the  superintendence  of  Mr.  McAll, 
whose  wisdom  and  caution  have  been  as  remarkable  as  his 
earnest  zeal.  Endowed  with  no  common  prudence  and 
meekness,  he  has  steered  his  way  through  many  difficulties, 
preserved  the  Mission  from  collision  with  municipal  law,  and 
maintained  his  quiet  equanimity  under  provocations  and  an- 
noyances. 

"  The  Mission  is  a  thoroughly  evangelical  one.  It  is 
the  gospel  of  Christ  which  pervades  the  hymns,  the  addresses, 
and  the  whole  teaching.  At  the  opening  of  the  last  station, 
in  June  of  this  year,  Mr.  McAll  struck  the  keynote  in  the 
words,  'Jesus  Christ,  and  him  crucified  ;'  and  all  the  speakers 
that  followed  took  it  up,  so  that  at  the  close  of  the  meeting 
the  remark  was  made  by  an  English  friend,  '  I  never  heard 
more  or  fuller  gospel  truth  than  I  have  done  to-night.' 

"  The  Mission  is  a  very  laborious  one.  These  twenty- 
four  stations  require  weekly  arrangements  beforehand  for 
speakers  and  helpers,  and  this  is  a  most  responsible,  deli- 
cate, and  difficult  business.  It  devolves  chiefly  on  Mr.  McAll. 
Then  the  distances  to  be  traversed  by  the  workers,  male  and 
female,  the  necessarily  late  hours,  the  unceasing  round  of  la- 
bor, the  visiting,  the  classes,  the  distribution  of  tracts,  involve 
great  fatigue,  both  mental  and  bodily.  Saturday  is  the  only 
free  day,  and  even  it  is  not  always  free. 

"The  Mission  is  a  very  complete  one.  It  embraces  every 


4S    GOD'S  WONDERFUL  WORK  IN  FRANCE. 


mode  and  department  of  missionary  work  that  we  have  at 
home,  except  the  open-air  preaching,  which  law  prohibits. 
Tracts,  books,  gospels,  Bibles,  Testaments,  magazines,  illus- 
trated religious  journals,  placards  with  texts,  hymn-books, 
are  here ;  every  appliance  is  made  use  of.  Paris  has  been 
flooded  with  these  messengers ;  and  to  do  this  has  been  no 
small  toil  to  the  overburdened  laborers. 

"  The  Mission  is  a  very  simple  one.  No  grand  hall  has 
been  built ;  no  costly  furniture  has  been  purchased.  Old 
wine-shops  have  been  cleaned,  whitewashed,  adorned  with 
texts,  and  well  lighted  ;  these  are  the  halls.  No  attempt  has 
been  made  at  ornament  or  show.  The  rush-bottomed  chairs 
and  the  rough  boards  of  the  platform  and  pulpit  are  witness- 
es of  the  simplicity  of  idea  which  runs  through  the  whole, 
and  suit,  better  than  all  grandeur,  the  nature  of  the  Mission 
and  the  designs  of  the  workers.  There  is  nothing  offensive 
or  coarse  or  untidy ;  yet  all  is  plain.  Here  ritualism  would 
be  shocked ;  early  Christianity  would  find  itself  at  home. 
The  archbishop  of  Paris  would  not  endorse  such  homeliness; 
Paul  would  enter  that  unadorned  hall,  and  step  up  upon  that 
unpolished  platform  with  congenial  alacrity. 

"The  Mission  is  a  very  economical  one.  There  is  no 
mission  in  existence  so  cheaply  maintained.  Mr.  McAll  man- 
ages everything  himself,  and*  he  is  a  capital  economist.  The 
rents  of  the  different  halls  are  the  most  serious  item  of  ex- 
pense ;  and  this  cannot  be  lessened.  But  no  needless  cost 
is  incurred,  and  every  farthing  of  the  subscribers'  money  is 
carefully  laid  out.  Mr.  McAll  knows  architecture  as  well  as 
theology ;  and  he  looks  well  to  the  condition  of  his  halls, 
avoiding  unnecessary,  yet  not  sparing  necessary  outlay. 

"  The  Mission  is  a  very  accurate  and  honest  one.  Ev- 
ery farthing  given  is  accounted  for,  not  in  the  lump,  but  in 
detail.  The  yearly  reports  show  the  carefulness  with  which 
each  item  is  set  down,  both  in  receiving  and  in  paying  away 
the  Mission  money.    Mr.  McAll's  accounts  are  models  of  mi- 


THE  McALL  MISSION. 


49 


nuteness  and  accuracy,  and  hence  the  confidence  which  sub- 
scribers have  in  the  pecuniary  part  of  the  Mission,  and  their 
assurance  that  their  money  is  fully  and  honestly  accounted 
for. 

"  It  is  a  very  comprehensive  Mission.  Its  agents  and 
agencies  embrace  all  evangelical  Christians  of  the  different 
churches  in  France  and  Great  Britain  and  America.  For  it 
is  not  any  one  church  that  is  at  work,  but  all  the  churches 
that  recognize  the  one  foundation  and  the  one  Head,  Jesus 
Christ  the  Son  of  God.  Hence  the  question  of  forming  a 
church  for  the  converts  has  never  been  raised.  They  fall  in 
to  the  neighboring  Protestant  churches  and  are  taken  up  by 
the  different  pastors. 

"  Though  the  Mission  in  every  part  is  most  economically 
conducted,  yet  the  expenses  are  necessarily  great;  and  were 
it  not  for  the  large  amount  of  disinterested  work,  of  unpaid 
and  half-paid  help,  the  noble  enterprise  could  not  be  main- 
tained. The  rents  are  high,  both  of  the  halls  and  private 
dwellings.  There  are  many  expenses  connected  with  the 
maintaining  of  these  meetings.  The  distances  to  be  travelled 
are  not  small,  and  the  cost  of  conveyance,  whether  by  rail- 
way, tram,  boat,  omnibus,  or  cab,  is  very  considerable. 
Books,  tracts,  Bibles,  leaflets,  journals,  gospels,  are  sent  out 
weekly  in  thousands ;  and  though  many  of  these  are  gener- 
ously furnished  to  the  mission-bureau  by  individuals  or  soci- 
eties, such  as  the  Religious  Tract  Society  of  London,  still  for 
a  considerable  proportion  of  them  the  Mission  has  to  pay. 
The  tear  and  wear  of  machinery,  as  we  may  call  it,  in  the  va- 
rious halls  is  not  small,  and  the  demands  on  this  account  are 
numerous  and  frequent. 

"  The  cry  comes  from  all  parts  of  France,  and  this  Mis- 
sion would  most  gladly  respond  to  it  had  it  the  means  and 
the  men.  But  it  has  not.  Its  resources  are  limited.  With 
twenty-four  stations  in  Paris,  eight  thousand  of  a  weekly 
adult  audience,  and  three  thousand  children,  its  hands  are 

Go  I'D  Wo  It  In  Franre.  7 


50    GOV'S  WOXDFRFUL  WORK  IN  FRANCE. 


full.  The  French  pastors  have  thrown  themselves  nobly  into 
the  work ;  a  goodly  number  of  volunteer  laborers,  male  and 
female,  French  and  English,  give  most  efficient  aid.  But  all 
this  is  too  little.  With  thirteen  other  stations  more  recently 
opened  elsewhere,  in  Lyons,  Bordeaux,  Arcachon,  Boulogne- 
sur-mer,  Rochefort,  and  La  Rochelle,  the  labor  and  the  cost 
are  multiplying;  and  though  the  year  1879  nas  not  been  un- 
favorable as  to  the  funds,  still  much  help  is  needed,  espe- 
cially for  the  establishment  of  branches  at  Lille  and  St. 
Etienne.    For  this  help  we  now  appeal. 

"  HORATIUS  BONAR." 


THE  DEP  UTA  TION  TO  A  M ERICA .        5 1 


CHAPTER  VI. 

The  Deputation  to  America.  France  the  Great 
Mission-Field  of  the  World  to-day.  The 
Three  Societies.  M.  Reveillaud's  Farewell. 
The  Commission. 

The  most  fruitful  mission-field  in  all  the  world  to- 
day is  France. 

It  is  an  exacting  field,  wherein  daily  increasing  suc- 
cess involves  the  need  of  increasing  expenditure,  and 
every  new  demand  satisfies  the  giver  that  his  past  gifts 
have  accomplished  their  object. 

It  is  a  field  which  is  a  manifest  seed-plot  for  future 
harvests  in  other  lands,  so  that  every  sheaf  brought  in 
from  it  is  an  inspiring  prophecy  and  promise. 

It  is  a  field  full  of  inspiring  associations,  such  as 
kindle  the  passion  of  a  Christian  chivalry  ;  it  is  rich  with 
the  blood  ot  martyrs,  and  adorned  with  the  monu- 
ments of  high  heroism. 

It  is  a  field  frequented  yearly  by  the  visits  of  pas- 
tors and  other  influential  Christians,  each  one  of  whom 
becomes  a  representative  and  advocate  of  the  work  on 
his  return. 

It  is  a  field  whose  own  converts,  accomplished  in 
every  native  gift  and  refinement  of  culture,  are  ready 


52    GOD'S  WOXDERFUL  WORK  IN  FRANCE. 


at  once  for  the  propagation  of  the  work  in  the  field,  or 
its  advocacy  at  the  base  of  supplies. 

It  is  a  field  wherein  all  the  achievements  of  the  gos- 
pel in  the  mission  are  felt  to  be  a  triumphant  assault 
upon  the  strongholds  of  a  form  of  aggressive  error  that 
threatens  us  in  our  own  homes ;  so  that  the  evangeli- 
zation of  France  is  the  defence  of  America. 

And  yet,  in  this  noblest  mission-field  of  all  the 
world  no  American  missionary  society,  whether  gen- 
eral or  denominational,  has  any  part  or  lot. 

It  is  under  the  impulse  of  a  simple  craving  to  have 
some  hand  in  what  seemed  to  them  God's  greatest 
work  in  our  generation,  that  several  American  gentle- 
men, without  mutual  concert,  have  given  personal  as- 
surances to  the  leaders  of  this  work  that  if  the  great- 
ness of  it  can  be  set  before  the  American  churches  by 
fit  representatives  of  it,  it  is  not  possible  that  such  rep- 
resentatives shall  fail  of  a  generous  welcome. 

Moved  by  such  assurances,  the  three  principal  soci- 
ties  of  evangelization  in  France,  with  fraternal  accord, 
have  agreed  in  the  choice  of  their  common  representa- 
tives to  the  people  of  America. 

These  societies  are : 

1.  The  "  Societe  Centrale  Protestante  d'Evangeli- 
sation,"  the  organ  oi  the  evangelical  part  of  the  Prot- 
estant church  in  France  as  by  law  established. 

2.  The  "  Societe  Evangelique,"  the  organ  ol  the 
Free,  or  unestablished  church. 


THE  DEPUTATION  TO  AMERICA.  53 


3.  The  "  Mission  Intxrieure,"  or  Home  Mission  So- 
ciety, whose  chief  duty  is  to  awaken  Protestants,  and 
to  organize  meetings  among  the  Catholic  population. 

All  these  societies  act,  in  the  matter  of  deputation, 
as  in  other  matters,  with  Christian  comity  and  har- 
mony. 

The  delegates  whom  they  send  to  us  are, 

Monsieur  Eugene  Reveillaud  ; 

The  Reverend  G.  Theophilus  Dodds. 

The  former  is  already  introduced  to  the  reader  of 
this  pamphlet  by  the  story  of  his  life  and  work.  His 
associate  is  known  to  the  friends  of  the  McAll  Mission 
as  the  chief  assistant  of  Mr.  McAll.  There  can  be  no 
impropriety  in  mentioning  a  fact  which  will  commend 
him  to  the  warm  personal  interest  of  all  American 
Christians,  that  he  is  the  son-in-law  of  Horatius  Bonar. 

The  farewell  of  M.  Reveillaud  to  the  readers  of  Le 
Signal,  on  his  departure  for  America,  may  be  trans- 
cribed here  as  his  salutation  to  us. 

"  At  this  moment  when  our  country  is  taking  counsel  to 
effect  its  final  deliverance  from  the  clutch  of  clericalism,  when 
sympathy  for  Protestantism  is  becoming  so  general,  when  so 
many  cities  and  villages  are  opening  to  the  gospel,  and  so 
many  Protestant  communities  are  ready  to  be  founded  or 
extended,  if  only  we  could  respond  to  all  the  calls  that  come 
to  us — in  this  most  propitious  seed-time,  when  our  resources 
are  so  inadequate  to  such  great  needs — it  has  seemed  neces- 
sary to  the  three  great  societies  which  divide  among  them 
the  field  of  evangelistic  labor  in  France — the  'Soci^te"  Cen- 


54    GOD'S  WONDERFUL  WORK  IN  FRANCE. 


trale,'  the  '  SocieHe"  £vang£lique,'  and  the  '  Mission  Int£rieure,' 
to  seek  aid  of  our  brethren  across  the  Atlantic.  We  go,  Mr. 
Dodds  and  myself,  and  others  too,  if  need  be,  to  set  before 
the  citizens  of  the  great  American  Republic,  before  the  evan- 
gelical Christians  of  every  denomination  in  that  vast  conti- 
nent, the  nature  and  extent  of  the  wants  that  are  felt,  that 
they  may  judge  to  what  extent  it  is  within  their  power  or 
their  duty  to  help  us.  The  facts  shall  speak  for  us,  more  elo- 
quent than  any  words  of  ours.  We  shall  depict  the  crowds 
that  flock  together  to  these  meetings  at  which  the  eternal 
Saviour  is  set  forth  as  the  one  Redeemer  that  can  liberate 
and  regenerate  society  threatened  with  decadence,  decom- 
position, and  ruin.  We  shall  tell  them  of  the  success  of  Mr. 
McAll's  meetings  wherever  they  have  been  founded,  with 
what  sympathy  our  evangelists  are  received  in  every  quarter, 
and  from  how  many  men,  brought  up  in  the  Catholic  church, 
we  hear  the  words,  '  We  have  done  with  Romish  priests ; 
send  us  pastors.' 

"  These  calls,  to  which,  for  lack  of  means,  we  are  too  often 
compelled  to  answer,  '  By-and-by,'  may,  through  the  aid  of 
our  American  brethren,  be  satisfied  at  once.  If  God  shall 
bless  our  efforts  as  we  hope,  the  three  societies  will,  on  our 
return,  through  the  generosity  of  American  Christians,  be  in 
a  position  to  establish  and  maintain  many  new  stations  of 
evangelization  that  shall  be  outposts  to  secure  old  conquests 
and  to  prepare  new  ones. 

"On  occasion  of  the  centennial  celebration  of  the  inde- 
pendence of  the  United  States,  the  people  of  France  had  the 
idea,  which  a  Franco-American  committee  is  soon  to  realize, 
of  a  colossal  statue, '  Liberty  enlightening  the  world,'  to  stand 
aloft  in  the  harbor  of  New  York,  and  symbolize  the  hundred 
years  of  union  between  the  sister  nations.  May  we  not  ex- 
pect, at  least  may  we  not  hope,  that  our  great-grandchildren, 
when  the  hundred  years  come  around  again,  may  celebrate 
another  centennial  by  setting  up  in  the  public  square  of  Paris 


THE  DEPUTATION  TO  AMERICA.  55 


or  some  other  of  our  great  cities,  the  statue  of  France  enfran- 
chised from  the  yoke  of  Roman  intolerance  and  superstition? 
And  on  its  pedestal,  built  by  some  new  Franco-American 
committee,  shall  be  a  bas-relief  representing  America  and 
England,  hand  in  hand,  giving  to  France  the  kiss  of  peace, 
and  teaching  her  to  read  that  gospel  from  which  they  have 
learned  the  great  lessons  of  their  own  liberty." 

The  Central  Commission,  organized  at  New  York  to 
welcome  and  aid  the  Deputation,  and  having  its  office 
at  the  rooms  of  the  American  and  Foreign  Christian 
Union,  45  Bible  House,  New  York,  is  thus  constituted: 

REV.  HOWARD  CROSBY,  D.  D.,  LL.  D., 

President. 

REV.  A.  F.  BEARD,  D.  D.,  of  Syracuse, 

Secretary. 


Rev.  HENRY  M.  FIELD,  D.  D.     Rev.  LYMAN  ABBOTT,  D.  D. 

"    J.  M.  BUCKLEY,  D.  D.  "    L.  T.  CHAMBERLAIN.  D.  D. 

"    ELBERT  S.  PORTER,  D.  D.  FRANKLIN  ALLEN,  Esq. 

"    A.  C.  WEDEKIND,  D.  D.       Hon.  E.  L.  FANCHER,  LL.  D. 

"    HENRY  M.  BAIRD,  D.  D.    A.  V.  STOUT,  Esq. 

"    LEON.  WOOLSEY  BACON.   Bishop  W.  L.  HARRIS. 

"    S.  I.  PRIME,  D.  D.  Hon.  CHARLES  FLAMMER. 

"    WM.  H.  WARD,  D.  D.  Hon.  F.  T.  FRELINGHU YSEN. 

ALBERT  WOODRUFF,  Esq.  Hon.  R.  L.  PRUYN. 

SAMUEL  D.  SCHIEFFELIN,  Esq.  Prof.  ELIE  CHARLIER. 
Rev.  WM.  M.  TAYLOR,  D.  D.        FREDERICK  H.  WOLCOTT,  Esq. 
Prof.  ARNOLD  GUYOT,  LL.  D.     Rev.  WILLIAM  T.  SABINE,  D.  D. 
Rev.  R.  HEBER  NEWTON,  D.  D.     "     HENRY  M.  BOOTH.  D.  D. 
A.  S.  HATCH,  Esq.  "    G.  L.  SHEARER. 

A.  S.  BARNES,  Esq.  "    EDWARD  B.  COE. 


